Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Tuesday at his official residence in Jerusalem with senior Palestinian officials, who gave him a letter from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the stalemate in the peace process. Although PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was expected to participate in the meeting, in the end, he did not come.

The prospect that Fayyad would not take part in the meeting with Netanyahu was a source of major embarrassment on the Palestinian side over the past two days. Abbas had previously announced publicly that Fayyad would attend, in part to underline the importance of the letter that was being delivered to the Israeli prime minister. For his part, however, Fayyad opposed an exchange of letters, contending that it would not produce results.

Netanyahu and his advisers have given their initial consideration to the letter from Abbas, which was more than five pages long and written in English. Their first impression was said to be that the document contained no new messages but also did not contain an explicit threat by the Palestinians to dissolve the PA in light of the current stalemate. Most of the contents of the letter had been published in various media outlets over the past several weeks.

Fayyad indicated to Abbas, who has been on a tour of Asian nations, that he did not intend to take part in the meeting with Netanyahu. Nonetheless, Saeb Erekat, who heads the Palestinian negotiating team, continued telling journalists, even hours before the meeting, that Fayyad would be there. A senior Israeli official said the Palestinian decision on who would meet with Netanyahu was their internal issue.

Ultimately, it was Erekat who stood in for Fayyad. He was joined at the meeting by Palestinian general intelligence chief Majed Faraj. On the Israeli side, Netanyahu was joined by his special envoy Isaac Molho. The talks lasted an hour and 20 minutes and were followed by a joint statement expressing the two sides' commitment to achieving peace. The parties also agreed that Molho would meet Abbas in Ramallah within the next two weeks, when he would provide Israel's response to the Palestinian letter.

The response is expected to contain Israel's stance on the borders of a future Palestinian state and security arrangements Israel would demand as part of any peace agreement. The response will also stress that Israel expects a final settlement of the conflict to include Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

On a visit to Colombia, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told his host, President Juan Manuel Santos, that Israel expects the Palestinians to enter into genuine peace negotiations. However, in Larnaca, Cyprus, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Cypriot President Demitris Christofias that that Abbas was not interested in an agreement.

To get the latest from HaaretzFollow @HaaretzomLike us on Facebook and get articles directly in your news feed

The arabs have never even recognized Israel as a JEWISH state, so how
can Israel negotiate with them. THe cowardice is disgusting. I thought
Bibi was strong, but he is not! We cannot have a two state solution
either. The Palestinians would only use it as a base to drive Israel
into the sea. We can win by being strong and brave and using full
force, no other way. Israel should never have given up Gaza or even the Sinaii.

Why was that an "embarassment" for the Palestinian side? I
don't quite get it after reading the article: if he says exchanging
letters would not yield results, then why announce his presence in the
first place?

If I were Palestinian, I would be desperate: Desperate that Iran runs
my national agenda via Jihadist terrorism; that all the options for a
state -even "relinquishing" the maximalist destroy-Israel-,
thus getting a state in the West Bank and Gaza, are being hijacked by
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and now the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Reconciliantions is the kiss of death. That's on my side of the divide.
On the Israeli side, seeing settlements, bypass roads, and encroaching
infrastructure grow in the land supposedly tagged for Palestine, would
make me crawl up the walls. I can understand their desperation, but if I
were Palestinian, I would decry my side's mistakes; not just accuse
Israel for stalling.

ok so lets just say that ISrael says ok lets split Jerusalem...
Operationaly how is this going to work? What status does one have if
they live in Jeruslaem? How will taxes work? If i cross the street do i
need my passport? The fact is you cant just devide a city... it does
not work... There has never been one situation where the capital of a
country has been devided sucessfully... and the only times in history
that a city was devided was small border towns whoes borders look more
like a chess bord then a real city... So i ask the question again how
do we devide Jerusalem? Or more to the point should the question not be
on how to devide it but how to share it?

And after some time you may want to drop the border posts and then you
may have two countries without borders. This would really be a good
thing. May be not realistic right now, but let's keep it in mind.

Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and analysis from Israel and the Middle East.
Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict,
the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.